1. Field
Example embodiments relate to a method of enhancing a ray tracing speed, and more particularly, to a method of enhancing a ray tracing speed by regrouping into a group a secondary ray based on a direction of the secondary ray, and performing a packet tracing based on the group.
2. Description of the Related Art
A three-dimensional (3D) image processing technology is a technology that generates a scene similar to an actual image, on a plane display such as a TV, a monitor, etc. The 3D image processing sets a virtual stereoscopic space Where a virtual stereoscopic object is to be placed, and simulates an image that may be viewed from a viewpoint of an observer according to a relation between a virtual light source and the virtual stereoscopic object.
The 3D image processing is classified into a process of modeling the virtual stereoscopic space and the virtual stereoscopic object, and a process of extracting an image of a modeled virtual stereoscopic object that is projected according to a viewpoint of an observer. The process of extracting the image of the virtual stereoscopic object that is projected according to the viewpoint of the observer is referred to as 3D rendering.
Ray tracing is one method of 3D rendering, which calculates an object seen by emitting, from a viewpoint, a ray to a virtual 3D space in a direction of each pixel on the image and calculates illuminance of the object. In this instance, a method of processing a common traversal only once by grouping rays having similar directions is suggested, which is referred to as a packet tracing method.
However, a conventional packet tracing method has a high efficiency only with respect to a primary ray that has a high coherency.
Accordingly, there is need for continuous studies for enhancing an efficiency of the ray tracing by grouping a secondary ray to have high coherency.